Amex Drops The Sign-Up Bonus On The Blue Business Plus Card

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In late May, American Express introduced The Blue BusinessSM Plus Credit Card, which is the hottest new credit card that we’ve seen introduced in quite a while. The card offers 2x Membership Rewards points on the first $50,000 spent each calendar year, it earns Membership Rewards points that can be transferred to Amex airline and hotel transfer partners, and it has no annual fee.

This is the single best credit card out there for non-bonused spend, as there’s no other card that offers 2x transferrable points on non-bonused spend (otherwise the best out there are the Chase Freedom Unlimited®and Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card, which are personal cards that offer up to 1.5x points on non-bonused spend).

Anyway, when the card was introduced it didn’t officially have a sign-up bonus, though there was a special offer for Amex affiliates that offered 20,000 bonus points upon completing minimum spend. Unfortunately that sign-up bonus on the The Blue BusinessSM Plus Credit Card has been eliminated as of yesterday. This change didn’t come with much notice, so I wasn’t able to write about it.

On one hand no one likes signing up for a card without a sign-up bonus. On the other hand, this is the single most lucrative card for everyday spend, it doesn’t have an annual fee, and for most it won’t even come with a credit inquiry, so the card is still very much worth signing up for.

It’s certainly possible that Amex brings back a sign-up bonus on this card at some point, though if they do, I wouldn’t count on it being big, and I wouldn’t count on it being anytime soon. My guess is that the card has outperformed all their projections for the first few weeks, so I can’t imagine they’ll be encouraged to add a bonus, especially since they didn’t intend to offer one publicly to begin with.

So personally if I had been considering The Blue BusinessSM Plus Credit Card but hadn’t signed up yet, I’d still consider doing so. The former sign-up bonus is a sunk cost at this point, so I’d make the decision to apply based on whether or not you think the bonus is coming back anytime soon. Personally I don’t, and I’d rather maximize the double points category for 2017 than wait another year for the possibility of a fairly small sign-up bonus.

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

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I have a Plat card and the annual fee just hit. I have had the Gold and Plat Personal and Business before and trying to figure out the best/cheapest place to park my points. I was planning on this Blue Business, but now where? I was looking at the Mercedes Benz cards, but they dont have good sign up bonuses right now.

I’ve had the card for a few weeks. About last weekend I hit the $3k spend. Just yesterday – and before a first statement had even been generated – I received my 20k bonus MR points. Wow – I didn’t expect it so soon!

I find that the crediting of signup bonuses varies greatly among cards. For example, Alaska waited More than a month to credit me the signup bonus and the companion fare after I hit the spend. Even longer to credit the shopping bonus through their site around Christmas.

Lucky should do a piece on how long you must wait for points and signup bonuses to be credited among the cards he promotes. Would be helpful for strategic planning purposes.

@Grant – My sign up bonus for the Plat hit the day I crossed 5k, and before I even paid my statement. I’m an existing amex cardholder who’s never missed a payment, so don’t know if that factors in, but it was definitely generous. My JetBlue card bonus didn’t post until I paid the statement when I hit the spend requirement.

@Ihaveopinionstoo not trollin big dogg. Just keeping it real that’s all. I appreciate most of Ben’s posts about developing news with airlines etc and his trip reports. But I’m gonna call his s**t out when I see it.

It’s one thing to pump cards; sure I don’t believe in it but whatever something’s gotta pay the bills. But to pump AND not tell your readers than better offer exists is not cool.

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